Excerpted From
Not In It to Win It
By Andy Stanley
Faith That Doesn’t Do Good Is No Good
First-century Christians considered Jesus a living king. He was their Lord. He was not merely Lord of their prayers and worship rituals. Jesus was Lord of how they lived their lives. His authority was a living authority that held sway over every facet of life, including their posture toward imperial authority. They understood that while his kingdom was not of this world, it was for this world and intersected with every aspect of the physical world. Wherever his constituency found a foothold, the world became a better place.
But not because of how his followers worshiped. Not because of what they believed. The world became a better place because of how they behaved.
The self-serving, self-preserving, culture-warrior posture that characterizes certain streams of evangelicalism today stands in sharp and disappointing contrast with the new-covenant behavior that characterized the early church. Believing has become a substitute for following. We’ve been so focused on not substituting works for faith that many of us have quit working. Or in Paul’s words, we quit working out our faith.
Authentic faith does stuff.
Jesus’s brother certainly thought so. According to James, faith that doesn’t accomplish anything isn’t worth anything. It’s dead. To punctuate his point, he asks his readers a rhetorical question:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?
Answer?
No good.
Faith that doesn’t do good is no good.
Competing Christians
Few Christians push back when encouraged to walk their talk, live out loud, behave like they believe. The pushback begins once we start talking specifics. Christians who stormed the Capitol on January 6 were convinced they were walking their talk. Other Christians were stunned that anyone would associate Jesus with that kind of behavior.
So who’s right?
When you pass street preachers outside football stadiums, you can’t help but feel a bit embarrassed by their mischaracterization of your faith. Or perhaps you’re convinced I just mischaracterized our faith by suggesting they do. Many Christians are embarrassed by the “God Hates Fags” and “Hell Is for Sodomites” signs and sign holders who appear at pride rallies. But the folks holding those signs are convinced they are walking their talk and wondering why more of us don’t join them.
I know why I won’t. It’s self-evident. To me, but not to them.
The division currently tearing churches, friends, and families apart isn’t fueled by a lack of respect for our infallible text. Division begins with our less-than-infallible applications of the text.
So how do we decide how to behave?
Who gets to decide?
What does it look like and sound like to work out our faith? James instructs us to be doers, not just hearers. But do what?
It’s an important question.
As it turns out, we don’t get to choose the answer. The answer has been prescribed and modeled for us in the New Testament. Directions are included on the label: we should take only as directed. We should apply only as directed. But something else is included on that New Testament label as well: the outcome. If the outcome of our application isn’t as predicted, chances are we’re not taking as directed.
Following Paul’s instructions to Christians in Philippi to “work out” or live out their salvation, he announces the results. When Jesus’s new- covenant teaching is applied as directed, here’s what can be expected:
. . . so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.
Being right, even believing right, doesn’t make us shine. Applying right is what makes us shine.
I’m afraid we’ve lost our shine.
We aren’t shining because we aren’t applying our faith as directed. Consequently, while we believe differently than outsiders, we don’t behave much different. Most notable and noticeable is we don’t react much differently when things don’t go our way.
Our actions and reactions undermine the credibility of our faith claims. Outsiders aren’t about to take our faith seriously as long as they wonder if we do. If Paul is correct, if we aren’t shining, we aren’t doing it right. We aren’t applying our faith right. We aren’t applying it as directed. Instead, we’ve painted crosses on the means and methods employed by the kingdoms of this world, and the contrast isn’t apparent.
For the most part.
But every once in a while, a little light shines through. Occasionally, somebody’s unusual reaction slices through the darkness in such a way that everybody stops to take notice. In those moments, we’re reminded that the light of Christ cannot be overcome by darkness. In those moments, the light of Christ has its intended effect. If what has become the exception rather than the rule ever became the rule, our nation would change.
For the better.
Excerpted from Not In It to Win It by Andy Stanley. Copyright © 2022 by Andy Stanley. Used by permission of Zondervan. Zondervan.com.